Susan Haas Morrissey

Mixed Media

Ropewalker in Purple Prism and Acrylic, 20x16

Scared Baby #4 Graphite and Charcole, 46x34

Statement

I have been working as an artist and exhibiting my work for over 25 years. I would call the resultant body of work a visual journal. While it is a large and a physically cumbersome accumulation, I nonetheless consider it a journal. It recalls who and where I was at age twenty, catalogues the whims and dreams of my youth, reveals how I thought as a young mother, and portrays what it was like to live and teach in both a large urban area and in a small town. It also recalls political issues that touched my life as well as lost family and friends.

As a young art student I wanted very much to draw from within myself and acknowledge what I found there to be worthy of setting down on paper or canvas. The truth within me at that time didn't seem to be sufficiently profound to be called art. In spite of my early doubts I came to recognize over the years the essence of life: joy and pain, peace and anxiety, elation and desperation. That is the marrow of life; what my work came to be about. On MY internal hard drive is stored a repertoire of feelings and images, always at the ready for my use-the mix and match of which often delights me, amuses me, or leads me to something more profound.

About four years ago, I tried my hand at a new medium, ceramics. While I had worked sculpturally in the past, the effort was generally an adjunct to a two dimensional piece. The sculptural characters I'm presently creating are not unlike those which frequent my paintings. Beginning with a series of horns which blow a soulful sound, and followed by a series of women who continue to have horn-like qualities, the latest pieces now have the whimsy of recent paintings.